Add your feedback on energy supplier Shell Energy (formerly First Utility)

wavelets

Watching the Call Centre on BBC3 last night, it looks like the savebritainmoney team are employed in some role for First Utility.

arobinson_2

Just to update people on my issues with First Utility.

I now have an online account, and my latest bill was generated using the actual reads I submitted to them so all looking good at last. I was also given £60 as a good will gesture to apologise which I consider to be fair.

As a word of advice, yes their customer service leaves a lot to be desired, however I did find calling the Case Resolution team and sending a formal letter of complaint to them got things moving a lot quicker than the call centre teams.

I have it on good authority they are hiring more staff and also working on their escalation procedure to ensure they can resolve issues quicker than before.

tomrob

Update.
A week after FU accepted their error and agreed to make the refund as per my calculations plus £35 good will gesture the money was creditted to my bank account. However it's a good thing I'd instructed my bank to refuse any further attempts to collect via direct debit as some other part of FU thinks I'm still a customer as I've just had a payment reminder sent to me via text message.
They really are hopelessly incompetent.
Avoid.

Pliddle

And I've had quite a few awful experiences with energy customer services! The departments don't communicate with each other and customer services don't bother following up your complaints, instead they get a debt collection agent to pester you to pay a bill which they know is incorrect.

It's been 6 months since I first complained about their incompetance and they've still not sorted it out. It took 3 months to finally get a correct final bill after having to take my issue to the energy ombudsman.

Avoid like the plague!

MerryLittleGoat

Please, please, please, avoid these idiots like the plague.
I was literally on the verge of a nervous breakdown by the way these vile people treated me and my wife. We were overcharged by £724.84 and despite taking legal advice, which ended up costing us over £200 they took our "debt" to a debt collector and insisted that we did owe them the money. CAB were brilliant, wish we'd gone there in the first place as they got definitive proof that we did NOT owe First Utility any money and in fact that they owed US £38.13. Not a fortune, but it was our money and eventually (after 7 months) we got our money back and had the "debt" written off. We had to go through hoops to get our Credit History put right as we'd never had any credit problems ever and with all this mucking about with First Utility we were horrified to notice that our credit score had gone down dramatically just as the "debt" was passed to the Debt Collecting Agency. Strangely enough, the agency were really helpful and gave us advice about how to see CAB, dispute the debt etc.

Please, of you are reading this and are thinking of signing up to First Utility, don't. They are NOT cheaper, they do NOT care for their customers and they WILL put you through hell.

We never got an official apology, nor any compensation for the upset, loss of money and time we spent trying to put this situation right. When we got our £38 back it was by cheque, with not even a please or thank you, just an acknowledgement slip.

We are now with EDF and so, so happy to have got ourselves free of First Utility. We are both retired, I am 76 and my wife is 85, we actually feel like our life has been markedly shortened by all this upset.

DocProc

'FU'?

What does 'FU' mean?

girlsmum

DocProc wrote: »

'FU'?

What does 'FU' mean?

It means First Utility

m0bov

Got £15 of compo as they have been chasing me for an outstanding debt even though i'm on fixed DD. They haven't reviewed the DD but still kept chasing me for more money. Their CS keep getting my details wrong and the spelling in their replies could have come for a 5 year old!

POLAR_BILL

I could save £80 with First Utility and have been toying with changing for a while now, but should I? They have a £30 per fuel exit fee and my very "switched on" neighbour changed 1st January and six months later has finally got both fuels transferred. I haven't read all the reports on this thread but have read enough to question whether I will save money, or will I just create a lot of hassle? In short, should I stay with Scottish Power who also have some bad feedback? I have had issues with them over the last 9 months after a trouble free 1st year.

gcheeseman

For what it's worth ... currently sitting on hold with First-Utility (42mins and counting)...after logging a website enquiry and getting an email back saying queries will be dealt with IN 5 DAYS!!!

Maybe I should not have told the first operator (only 5 min wait) that I want to reduce my Direct Debit ...